78 LONDON CHILDREN 



carillon still chimed from the wild hyacinths, 

 though their towers were fallen and the 

 belfries wrecked. I looked at the trans- 

 figured faces of the children old or young, 

 they were all children who breathed in 

 the smoke and worked in the shadow, and 

 saw that the beauty of the wild flowers had 

 passed into their eyes ; although the woods 

 were ravaged, the spoiling and pillaging 

 had not been in vain. For two or three 

 days wilting flowers and stolen blossom 

 would remind them of the sunlight and 

 the fresh air, of the cloudshadow that swept 

 up and the warmth that followed when the 

 beams of light lacquered the branches of 

 the trees. 



I was filled with an ecstasy; the car, 

 ordinarily so drab with its burden of artisans 

 and factory workers, seemed illumined and 

 vitalised with yellow, the colour of happi- 

 ness; a radiance hovered about the children, 

 as though the buttercups -had dislustred 

 their gold upon the air. I wanted to shout my 



